A typical prior art stacking and nesting container is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,113,680 to Frater. Frater discloses a container having a slanting trough in each side wall which is formed by projecting a portion of the side wall outwardly. The containers can be stacked vertically on top of one another by resting the trough of the upper container on a support or stacking point of the lower container. The upper container may be nested within the lower by longitudinally shifting the upper container to fit the trough of the upper container into the trough of the lower container. The primary disadvantage of such a construction is that it only permits the containers to be in two positions, i.e., stacked or nested, and does not permit multi-level stacking.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,404,804, also to Frater, partially solves this problem by modifying the troughs to include various levels of stacking points which are used to support closed ends of a trough in a like upper container in various stacking positions. However, this container suffers from lack of stability and the upper container may easily slip from one level to another.